Creativity Conviction. (Episode 125)
Interview with Patricio Melo , Executive Vice President, Media/Chief Technology Officer at Davivienda.
Here is an interesting observation: Believe that people will change, adapt new technology and innovate and it’s a much better chance that they will. Doubt that they will, and they will not.
This lesson was given to me by Patricio Melo , Executive Vice President, Media/Chief Technology Officer at Davivienda, a Colombian bank.
It reminded me of the famous study where they told a temporary teacher that the class that she was going to teach was full of gifted students. And then they told another temporary teacher that class she was going to teach was full of underachievers. The teacher with the gifted kids did much better on the test. The only problem is that both teachers were given the same class.
If company leaders look at their clients as bad at adopting new technology, they will most likely end up being bad at adopting new technology. If you look at your customers as great at adopting new technology, there is a bigger chance that they will be.
Same is true for staff.
Or in other words: We have to be convinced about someone’s ability to be innovative for them to be able to be creative. We have to have Creativity Conviction.
At Davivienda, they have Creativity Conviction. Or in the words of Patricio, “Every person can be a source of innovation and value add – and we MUST encourage everyone to present their ideas and projects and we challenge our people. If you believe that people can innovate and they will believe that they can. In the same way we believe that digital transformation is not one very big project, but many smaller projects. We believe that real digital transformation is a lot of small initiatives that come from our employees.”
Some examples of what this Creativity Conviction has empowered: The bank started virtual meetings many years before it became “a thing” due to the pandemic. They have introduced a block-chain based financial bonds system, and their p2p-payment system went from 600,000 customers ten years ago to today’s 16 million, many of these being poor people with very little education and with access to very low-tech technology. The bank believed in these customers’ ability to become digitalised. And they did.
Patricio: “Never underestimate people’s ability to change – especially if they need to.”
Do you have Creativity Conviction in your customers and staff? If not, do you think that the fact that you don’t might affect their ability to actually innovate?
How could you increase the Creativity Conviction in your organization?
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